Ancient Maya Predicted 1991 Solar Eclipse

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LONG BEACH, Calif. — The Maya, best known these days for the
doomsday they never foretold, may have accurately predicted
astronomical phenomena centuries ahead of time, scientists
find.

A new book, "Astronomy in the Maya Codices" (American
Philosophical Society, 2011), which was awarded the Osterbrock
Book Prize for historical astronomy here at the American
Astronomical Society conference Monday (Jan. 7), details a series
of impressive observations made by Mayan astronomers pre-16th
century.

Anthropologist husband-wife team, Harvey and Victoria Bricker
have devoted their lives to understanding the pre-Columbian Maya
and how they understood the world around them. The Brickers
conducted most of their work by translating complex hieroglyphics
to see what Mayan scribes felt was most important to record on
parchment.

By decoding
early Mayan hieroglyphics from four different codices housed
in Madrid, Paris, Mexico and Dresden, the Brickers tracked how
the night sky would have looked to the Mayans when they were
alive.

The Brickers translated the dates cited in the Mayan calendar to
correspond with our calendar and then used modern knowledge of
planetary orbits and cycles to line up the Maya's data with ours.
It was surprisingly accurate. [ Image
Gallery: Amazing Mayan Calendar Carvings ]

In fact, the Brickers found the astronomical calendar dated to
the 11th or 12th century accurately predicted a solar eclipse to
within a day in 1991, centuries after the Mayan civilization had
ended. The 1991 eclipse occurred on July 11.

The team also found that the Maya had a fair
number of superstitions surrounding observable heavenly
bodies in the night sky. On the friendly side, they had the sun
and the moon — a god and goddess, respectively — whose cycles
were easy to map, predict and keep track of. In the
not-so-friendly camp were Venus and Mars. The motions of those
two planets usually signaled doom and destruction depending upon
their place in the sky, the Brickers found.

The manuscripts warned that if
Venus shines upon children, old men and women or healthy
young men at certain points in its orbit, then harm would come to
them. Because the Maya wanted to make sure these potentially
dangerous moments didn't interfere with the lives of their
people, Harvey Bricker said, they kept extremely detailed records
of where Venus and other planets appeared in the night sky on certain
days.

Mars — an animalistic god — signified gloomy days to come for
everybody.

"There was thought to be a relationship, and not a happy one,
between phenomena associated with Mars and agriculture," Harvey
Bricker said.